The ECI over the years, from turnout data to internal dissent

The latest controversy surrounding the Election Commission of India (ECI) follows a series of disputes since the 2024 Lok Sabha election — over turnout data, alleged ‘vote chori’, electoral-roll revisions and the Commission’s appointment process. The immediate trigger is a September 23 investigation by The Indian Express, which, after examining internal records, reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally recorded objections at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions concerning voter registration, deletions, electoral-roll databases and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The ECI has not disputed the existence or contents of the notes, but says differing views are part of institutional deliberation and that its decisions were ultimately unanimous.

From turnout data to Vote Chori

One of the major dispute came during the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge questioned the delay in publishing final turnout figures and the increase between provisional and final numbers. He alleged that the changes raised the possibility of an attempt to ‘doctor the final results’. The ECI rejected the allegation and said the figures were provisional because data from polling stations continued to be received and collated after polling. The disagreement was therefore over the transparency and timing of turnout data, not a judicial finding about the results.

In August 2025, Rahul Gandhi shifted the focus from turnout figures to electoral rolls. He alleged that more than one lakh fake votes had been created in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura Assembly segment during the 2024 Lok Sabha election, citing alleged duplicate voters, false or incomplete addresses, bulk registrations and other discrepancies. The ECI and Karnataka’s election authorities rejected the allegations and asked Gandhi to submit a signed declaration under oath and details supporting the claims so they could be formally examined. Gandhi continued to press the broader “vote chori” charge. The allegations have not been established by a court as proof of manipulated election results.

SIR and the millions of voter claims

The next phase was SIR. The ECI began the exercise in Bihar in June 2025 and subsequently extended it to other states. The scale of the exercise became central to the controversy: The Indian Express reported that more than 13 crore names were struck from draft rolls across 30 states and Union Territories during the national SIR exercise, prompting political and legal disputes over documentation, inclusion and deletion.

The Supreme Court intervened during the Bihar exercise, including directing the ECI to accept Aadhaar and other specified documents from people seeking inclusion. The dispute subsequently moved to West Bengal. During the Bengal SIR process, 60.06 lakh electors were flagged for adjudication. The Supreme Court directed judicial officers to examine the cases. According to figures later placed before the Court by the ECI, 27.16 lakh voters were ultimately deleted through the adjudication process. Of 38.31 lakh appeals subsequently filed, 22.21 lakh were by deleted voters seeking inclusion and 16.10 lakh sought further deletions. Only 1,607 deleted voters had been restored in time to vote in the 2026 Assembly election. The ECI attributed deletions to categories including dead, shifted, absent and duplicate electors and rejected claims that the exercise invalidated the election.

The figures represent different stages of the process and are not very isolated cases. The 60.06 lakh figure refers to electors whose cases were placed before judicial officers for adjudication, not to voters who were all deleted. Of these, about 32.9 lakh were retained or included, while 27.16 lakh were deleted. The subsequent 38.31 lakh figure refers to appeals against those adjudication outcomes, not to additional deletions: 22.21 lakh were filed by deleted voters seeking restoration, while 16.10 lakh challenged inclusions and sought further deletions. The 22.21 lakh appeals by deleted voters amount to roughly 82% of the 27.16 lakh deletions made through adjudication, but that ratio by itself does not establish that the deletions were wrongful.

Inside the commission’s own dissent

It is against this backdrop that the Indian Express investigation places the internal objections. According to records examined by the newspaper, Sandhu and Joshi objected to decisions they said were taken without their knowledge or approval. Their concerns covered the addition of new voters, deletion and restoration of names, appeals against voters restored through the Bengal adjudication process, and control and access to the electoral-roll database.

One dispute concerned Form 6, used for registration of new voters. Internal records reported by The Indian Express show that the two Commissioners had recorded in May that a new declaration requiring applicants to establish whether they or their parents or grandparents appeared in an earlier SIR roll could not be introduced without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The declaration was nevertheless added to the ECINet portal. Sandhu subsequently described the change as ‘unauthorised and illegal’. The newspaper separately reported that although the new section was not marked mandatory, applicants could not submit the form without answering it.

The Commissioners also raised concerns over the technology governing the rolls. After ECINet was launched on January 22, 2026, the newspaper reported that Sandhu and Joshi objected to what they described as the ‘gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database’ and restrictions on access for statutory election officials. They questioned whether the IT Director General had authority to restrict access available to Electoral Registration Officers, District Election Officers and Chief Electoral Officers. The concerns were copied to CEC Gyanesh Kumar on multiple occasions. In a separate development, both Commissioners wrote to Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan over changes in work allocation that they believed could further concentrate control over the electoral-roll IT system.

It also reported a Goa case in which software limitations prevented Electoral Registration Officers from restoring 97 voters whom they had found eligible after hearings ordered by the Supreme Court. This is however a documented operational problem reported, it does not by itself establish that the voters were deliberately excluded.

The dispute also raises questions about how the three-member Commission takes decisions. The 2023 Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act provides that the Commission should, as far as possible, transact business unanimously; where Commissioners differ, a majority prevails. Sandhu and Joshi recorded objections that communications or decisions had proceeded without the requisite approval. The ECI, in response to the investigation, said written notes, observations and technical suggestions are normal checks within its functioning and that the decisions ultimately taken over the past year were absolutely unanimous. It did not dispute the existence, dates or contents of the 14 notes.

Independence, appointments and the latest political response

A parallel controversy concerns how Election Commissioners themselves are appointed. In Anoop Baranwal v Union of India in March 2023, a Constitution Bench directed that, until Parliament enacted a law, appointments would be recommended by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and Chief Justice of India. Parliament’s subsequent 2023 law replaced the CJI with a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. Petitions by Jaya Thakur, the Association for Democratic Reforms and others challenged the arrangement as inconsistent with the constitutional requirement of an independent ECI. The Supreme Court declined to stay the law in January 2024.

On September 23, 2026, a two-judge Supreme Court Bench delivered a split verdict on whether the challenge to the 2023 appointments law should be referred to a larger Constitution Bench. Justice Dipankar Datta rejected the Union’s request for a reference, while Justice S.C. Sharma held that the challenge raised a substantial question of law. Both judges nevertheless directed that the matter be placed before the Chief Justice for consideration of a larger Bench. Justice Datta stressed that the ECI must not only be independent but also ‘appear to be independent’; the Court’s final determination on the appointments law remains pending.

The latest investigation has now produced a political response. Opposition parties including the Congress, TMC, AAP, SP and Shiv Sena (UBT) have demanded action against CEC Gyanesh Kumar; some leaders have called for his removal or arrest and for a probe into the reported objections. Uddhav Thackeray said the investigation showed that Opposition concerns about the Commission were not ‘unsubstantiated’. Congress leaders demanded disclosure of who authorised the disputed decisions. These are political responses to the reported findings, not judicial determinations.

The chronology therefore runs from questions over turnout-data transparency in 2024, to allegations of electoral-roll manipulation in 2025, to judicial scrutiny of SIR and millions of voter claims in 2025–26, and finally to documented objections from two of the three Commissioners themselves. What the latest records establish is the existence of those objections; what remains contested is the correctness and legal basis of the decisions they questioned. But what is central to the larger issue now before the courts and the public: how transparent, accountable and institutionally independent must the body administering the electoral roll be to sustain confidence in the franchise?